On Jun 23, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Gerhard Postpischil wrote:
Ed Gould wrote:
I am not sure I understand the question. They were expected to
work on any work that was assigned to them by our company. Not use
their time there for some other use. We had one consultant that
was an ISV and was using our system to do development work on his
product. THEN he tried to sell the work to us at the retail price.
What a rip off.
I've been on both sides of this issue. When doing consulting work,
it's a lot quicker (selling point) to use software you're
comfortable with, instead of trying to learn non-standard software
or options the client has. I had a standard agreement that they
retained the right to use the software, in exchange for my
installing it, and if necessary, modifying it to adapt to their
environment. In twenty years, only two installations declined the
offer; one was a government site with security concerns, the other
insisted on 100% ownership of anything developed at their facility
- so they got 100% of nothing, instead.
When I got feelers to install the product so everyone could use it. I
wanted to make sure there was a signed contract and also some
assurance it didn't need any APF or SVC's type requirements or any
operating system dependencies. I also had a few other simple requests
like who was going to maintain it and who was going to call in
problems and to where. The individual thought those questions were
way to much and wouldn't answer them. I suggested to management that
if they needed a product to right up their requirements and we could
do a joint search and go through the proper channels. I wanted to
make sure that everyone had input. They didn't want to go through the
process so I just sent back the request with a note to defer any
payment to the vendor until the applications manager put things in
writing.
Yes it was a management issue but our management (and I use the
term loosely) did not require time sheets and the like. Nor did
management stay much after 5PM to see what was going on. When most
of the goofing off was occurring.
That's poor practice. I have never worked on a consulting contract
that didn't require time sheets.
What can I say our managers seemed to be the trusting kind. I did not
agree but it wasn't my place to say so.
----------------zzsnip-----------------------
To me that seems backwards. As systems manager, I had the chance to
get other employees interested in programming; learning makes jobs
easier to understand and carry out. One of our operators wrote a
very nice football game, with suggestions and feedback from other
operators and programmers, and it spoiled him <G>. Last time I ran
into him at Share he was an IBM manager, complete with three piece
suit and pocket watch with fob.
I have worked with such a person (in fact he is now a billionaire)
from the money he made from the company he started and then sold to
CA. Good for him I hope he enjoys the $$. He swore he would never
sell the company but the big bucks was just too much temptation.
On the other hand I can also tell you about another consulting
company that was fairly dishonest. Yes they paid their people the BIG
$$, but they were nothing but crooks when they came down to it. I had
utter contempt for all its employees and the work they did.
Ed
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
